Roulette wheel with leveling correction and gaming table including this kind of roulette wheel

ABSTRACT

Roulette wheel including a bowl, a disk rotatably mounted inside the bowl, and an assembly for adjusting the leveling of the bowl. The adjustment includes an inclination detector attached to the bowl ( 1 ) and actuators for automatically correcting the leveling of the bowl as a function of information supplied by the inclination detector. This roulette wheel with leveling correction is placed on the playing surface of a roulette table.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is a U.S. National Stage of International PatentApplication No. PCT/FR2005/001995 filed Jul. 29, 2005.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a roulette wheel and to a gaming tablecarrying this kind of wheel.

2. Discussion of Background Information

An essential element of French or American roulette is the roulettewheel, as is known in the art.

This kind of wheel conventionally comprises a bowl, generally of wood,within which is rotatably mounted a disk, generally of metal.

Numbers are marked at the periphery of this disk, and compartmentsseparated from each other by dividing walls are disposed radially insideand facing the numbers.

In use, the disk is rotated manually by a knob at its center and a ballis launched onto the upper track of the bowl.

The ball runs around this track, moves onto the rotating disk, andfinally settles in one of the compartments of the disk, therebydesignating a number at random.

For the disk to be able to rotate correctly relative to the bowl and forthe trajectory of the ball not to be influenced in any way by any slopewhatsoever, it is essential that the bowl can be leveled so that it isperfectly horizontal.

To achieve this result, the bowl is conventionally mounted on feet withthumbwheels that can be adjusted manually from time to time. A spiritlevel is used to check that the wheel is horizontal: if necessary, thefeet are adjusted to return the wheel to the horizontal.

These periodic adjustments necessitate great care and take a long time.

There is therefore a need for a system for leveling a roulette wheelquickly and with great accuracy.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a roulette wheel comprising a bowl, adisk rotatably mounted inside the bowl, and an adjustment assembly foradjusting the leveling of the bowl. The adjustment assembly comprises aninclination detector attached to the bowl and an automatic correctionassembly for automatically correcting the leveling of the bowl as afunction of information supplied by the inclination detector.

The inclination detector allows the actual leveling of the bowl of theroulette wheel to be determined continuously and corrected immediatelyand with great accuracy by the automatic correction assembly.

According to one aspect of the invention, the inclination detectorcomprises a two-axis inclinometer.

An inclinometer of this kind is commercially available in the form of anintegrated circuit and provides the leveling correction functioncompactly and at low cost.

According to another aspect of the invention, the automatic correctionassembly comprises a tripod stand supporting the bowl, in which at leasttwo of the three feet of the stand incorporate an actuator adapted tovary the effective length of the corresponding foot.

According to a further aspect of the invention, the automatic correctionassembly comprises two actuators under the bowl, each adapted to pivotthe bowl about an axis passing through the other actuator and through abearing point under the bowl. The automatic correction assembly furthercomprises a control unit for controlling the actuators as a function ofinformation supplied by the inclination detector.

Two actuators are sufficient to modify the leveling of the roulettewheel in all directions in space and enable simple and economicalleveling correction.

According to another aspect of the invention, the actuators are of thelinear electromechanical type.

Linear actuators are readily available commercially and can executeadjustments of great accuracy.

According to a further aspect of the invention, the control unitcomprises a storage device for storing information supplied by theinclination detector corresponding to a calibration leveling of the bowland for automatically moving the bowl from any leveling to thecalibration leveling.

The storage device for storing a calibration leveling enablesinformation supplied by the inclinometer corresponding to the idealleveling of the roulette wheel to be stored in memory and the actuatorssubsequently controlled to cause information currently supplied by theinclinometer to converge toward the information stored in memory.

Accordingly, once the calibration has been effected, the currentleveling of the roulette wheel may be changed to its ideal leveling atany time.

According to another aspect of the invention, the roulette wheelcomprises a warning device for warning that it is impossible to correctthe leveling given the information supplied by the inclinometer and theactual positions of the actuators.

The warning device advises the operator when the system of the inventionis insufficient to achieve automatic leveling correction, and thereforethat manual intervention is necessary.

According to a further aspect of the invention, the inclinometer and/orthe actuators are mounted inside open housings under the bowl.

Placing the inclinometer and the actuators inside the bowl of theroulette wheel provides that the outline of the wheel is not increasedso that it is not necessary to modify roulette tables to be equippedwith this kind of wheel.

The present invention also relates to a spirit level for calibrating theabove roulette wheel, the spirit level comprising a window containing abubble mounted on a supporting structure with three bearing pointsadapted to rest on the upper track of the bowl of the roulette wheel.

The present invention further relates to a roulette gaming table that itcarries the above roulette wheel.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent inthe light of the following description with reference to the appendeddrawings of one embodiment of a roulette wheel of the invention,provided by way of non-limiting example, in which drawings:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a roulette wheel of the invention,

FIG. 2 is a view of this roulette wheel in section taken along the lineA-A in FIG. 4,

FIG. 3 is a plan view of part of FIG. 2,

FIG. 4 is a diagrammatic bottom view of the roulette wheel of theinvention, and

FIG. 5 is a diagrammatic top view of the roulette wheel of the inventionduring calibration.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PRESENT INVENTION

Referring to FIGS. 1 and 2, it is seen that the roulette wheel of theinvention comprises a bowl 1, preferably made of hardwood or syntheticmaterial. Inside the bowl 1 is rotatably mounted a disk 5, preferablyand conventionally formed of a plurality of metal parts assembledtogether.

A tank 3, preferably made of metal, is fixed to the bowl 1 and serves asa housing for the disk 5, which is rotatably mounted by ball bearings ona spindle 7. The spindle 7 is fixed to the bottom of the tank 3.

A knob 9 is fastened to the disk 5.

The disk 5 has numbers 11 at its periphery and, radially inside andfacing the numbers, compartments 13 separated from each other by frets15. This is known in the art.

Referring to FIGS. 2 to 4, it can be seen that the bowl 1 of theroulette wheel of the invention comprises three housings opening ontoits lower face.

Two of these housings contain actuators 17 a, 17 b and the third housingcontains a two-axis inclinometer 19.

The bowl 1 has a bearing member 21 on its lower external face.

As may be seen in FIG. 4, the two actuators 17 a, 17 b and the bearingmember 21 are preferably disposed substantially at the three vertices ofan equilateral triangle centered relative to the bowl 1. Theinclinometer 19 may be disposed in the vicinity of the bearing member21, on the median line of the segment delimited by the two actuators.

The two actuators 17 a, 17 b are preferably linear electromechanicalactuators from HAYDON SWITCH & INSTRUMENT INC., Waterbury, Conn. 06705USA.

For a conventional roulette wheel weighing from 70 kg to 120 kg, the twoactuators are rated to be able to exert a thrust of the order of 80 kgover a stroke of the order of 13 mm.

The two-axis inclinometer 19 may be an SCA100T integrated circuit fromVTI TECHNOLOGIES, Dearborn, Mich. 48126, USA.

An inclinometer of the above kind is capable of detecting an inclinationangle variation of the order of 0.1 degree about two perpendiculardirections symbolized by two arrows 23 (see FIG. 3) on the top of theintegrated circuit.

The two actuators 17 a, 17 b and the inclinometer 19 are connected byappropriate electrical connections 25 a, 25 b, 25 c to an electroniccontrol unit 27 that may comprise an electrical power supply,calculation unit, and a memory area 29.

The control unit 27 is preferably situated externally to the roulettewheel, but may be integrated into the bowl 1.

The mode of operation and the advantages of the invention followdirectly from the preceding description.

The roulette wheel is designed to be placed on the playing surface 31 ofa gaming table 33 shown diagrammatically in partial section in FIG. 2.

A preliminary operation includes calibrating the automatic correctionassembly.

This operation may be carried out either on the gaming table 33 orelsewhere, for example, on a support other than the gaming table inwhich the roulette wheel is to be installed.

The first step is to place a spirit level with three bearing points, forexample, a tripod spirit level 36, so that its three feet 37 a, 37 b, 37c bear on the upper track 38 of the bowl 1, in the manner shown in FIG.5.

The leveling of the bowl 1 is then adjusted manually until the bubble 39of the tripod spirit level 36 is exactly in the middle of theobservation window 40 of the tripod, thereby indicating that theleveling of the bowl 1 is perfectly horizontal.

The leveling of the bowl 1 may be manually adjusted in any appropriatemanner, for example, by placing shims under the bowl or by adjusting theheight of the feet of the support on which the bowl is placed (gamingtable or other support).

Once the leveling of the bowl 1 has been adjusted in this way, thecontrol unit 27 is operated (for example, by way of a calibrationbutton) to store the information supplied by the inclinometer 19corresponding to this leveling in the memory area 29.

The tripod 36 may then be removed, any manual adjustment devices (shims,support with adjustable feet, etc.) cleared away, and the roulette wheel1 positioned as shown in FIG. 2 (i.e., so that the bearing member 21 andthe rods 35 of each of the actuators 17 a, 17 b bear on the upper faceof the playing surface 31 of the gaming table 30).

The control unit 27 is then operated (for example, by way of anappropriate control button) so that it commands adjustment of thelengths of the rods 35 of the two actuators 17 a, 17 b until theinformation currently supplied by the two-axis inclinometer 19 coincideswith the stored information corresponding to the horizontal levelingdetermined beforehand, in the manner described above.

Two actuators are generally sufficient, each actuator being able topivot the bowl 1 about an axis passing through the other actuator andthrough the bearing point 21, which provides that the leveling of thebowl 1 can be modified in all directions in space. However, the bearingmember 21 may alternatively be replaced by a third linearelectromechanical actuator of the same type as the actuators 17 a and 17b.

Without departing from the scope of the present invention, the roulettewheel could rest on a tripod base, at least two of the three feetwhereof, or even all three feet, incorporating an actuator adapted tovary its effective length.

A warning device may be provided, for example, an audible warningdevice, to advise the operator that it is impossible to correctautomatically the leveling of the bowl 1 given the information suppliedby the inclinometer 19 and the actual positions of the actuators 17 a,17 b.

The warning device may be triggered if the stroke of the rods 35 of theactuators 17 a, 17 b is insufficient to achieve a horizontal leveling.

Other warning devices may also be provided to advise the operator thatautomatic correction of the leveling of the bowl 1 is in progress.

Automatic correction of the leveling of the bowl may be triggered at thecommand of an operator, as indicated above, or in a programmed periodicmanner.

Triggering may also occur automatically each time that the levelingmeasured by the inclinometer 19 departs by a predetermined amount fromthe ideal leveling determined in the manner indicated above.

The present invention is not limited to the embodiment described andshown, which is provided by way of illustrative and non-limitingexample.

For example, two single-axis inclinometers could be used instead of atwo-axis inclinometer.

1-10. (canceled)
 11. A roulette wheel, comprising: a bowl; a diskrotatably mounted inside the bowl; an adjustment assembly for adjustingthe leveling of the bowl comprising an inclination detector attached tothe bowl, and an automatic correction assembly for correcting theleveling of the bowl as a function of information supplied by theinclination detector.
 12. The roulette wheel according to claim 11,wherein the inclination detector comprises a two-axis inclinometer. 13.The roulette wheel according to claim 11, wherein the automaticcorrection assembly comprises a tripod stand having three feet tosupport the bowl; and at least two of the feet comprise an actuatorstructured and arranged to vary an effective length of the correspondingfoot.
 14. The roulette wheel according to claim 11, wherein theautomatic correction assembly comprises: two actuators disposed underthe bowl, in which each actuator is structured and arranged to pivot thebowl about an axis that passes through the other actuator and through abearing point under the bowl; and a control unit that controls theactuators as a function of information supplied by the inclinationdetector.
 15. The roulette wheel according to claim 14, wherein theactuators comprise linear electromechanical actuators.
 16. The roulettewheel according to claim 14, wherein the control unit comprises astorage device for storing information supplied by the inclinationdetector corresponding to a calibration leveling of the bowl and forautomatically moving the bowl from any leveling to the calibrationleveling.
 17. The roulette wheel according to claim 14, furthercomprising: a warning device for warning that, given the informationsupplied by the inclination device and positions of the actuators, theleveling of the bowl cannot be corrected.
 18. The roulette wheelaccording to claim 12, wherein the two-axis inclinometer is mountedinside an open housing under the bowl.
 19. The roulette wheel accordingto claim 14, wherein the actuators are mounted inside open housingsunder the bowl.
 20. A spirit level for calibrating the roulette wheelaccording to claim 11, the spirit level comprising: a supportingstructure with three bearing points structured and arranged to rest onan upper track of the bowl of the roulette wheel; and a windowcontaining a bubble mounted on the supporting structure.
 21. A roulettegaming table structured and arranged to carry the roulette wheelaccording to claim
 11. 22. The roulette wheel according to claim 11,wherein the automatic correction assembly comprises linearelectromechanical actuators.
 23. The roulette wheel according to claim11, wherein the automatic correction assembly comprises a storage devicefor storing information supplied by the inclination detectorcorresponding to a calibration leveling of the bowl and forautomatically moving the bowl from any leveling to the calibrationleveling.
 24. The roulette wheel according to claim 11, furthercomprising: a warning device for warning that the leveling of the bowlcannot be corrected given the information supplied by the inclinationdevice and the automatic correction assembly.
 25. A method forautomatically leveling a roulette wheel, comprising: monitoring aninclination of the roulette wheel relative to a calibrated leveling; andautomatically controlling the inclination of the roulette wheel.
 26. Themethod according to claim 25, further comprising predetermining thecalibrated leveling and storing the calibrated leveling.
 27. The methodaccording to claim 26, further comprising comparing the storedcalibrated leveling to the monitored inclination, and, when themonitored inclination departs from the stored calibrated leveling by apredetermined amount, controlling actuators to adjust the inclination.